Ongole: Teachers want proposal to merge classes dropped
Teachers protest against the merger of some primary classes with high schools at the collectorate in Ongole on Saturday
Ongole: Members of the Federation of Andhra Pradesh Teachers' Organisations (Fapto) demanded the state government to drop the proposal to merge Classes III, IV and V in the primary schools into high schools immediately.
The teachers staged a protest in front of the district collectorate here on Saturday and announced that they continue their agitation until the government shelved its decision.
Speaking at the protest, FAPTO district in-chrage Parre Venkata Rao said that the splitting the primary schools and merging three primary classes in the nearby high schools will increase the dropout rate instead of doing any good to the students. He said that it is illogical to shift the students from the primary schools which are beautifully renovated under Nadu- Nedu now to the high schools where they lack even classrooms.
He advised the government to fill the 25,000 teacher vacancies first, strengthen school education, and then discuss with the experts who know the ground level realities on the hiving of primary schools before taking the right decision.
Another Fapto leader P V Subba Rao demanded the government to continue English and Telugu media in high schools, allot headmaster posts to all primary schools, and award promotions to teachers on a monthly basis.
He also demanded control of the private education system in the state.
Chennupati Manjula said that the government abhors the right to speech. She said that it is not good for the government to make decisions on education without consulting the experts, the teachers MLCs and the teachers' unions.
D Veeranjaneyulu announced that there will be many protests in near future and asked the teachers to prepare for them. The Fapto leaders announced that the state leadership asked them to attend schools by wearing black ribbons on August 16 as a mark of protest against the government's decision.
FAPTO leaders Gurunatha Sarma, B Srinu, Atluru Ammaiah, Veeraiah, Paleti Suvarna Babu, M Sarath Chandrababu, P Ashok, Y Venkata Rao, Lakshminarayana, Sk Abdulla, Sarath Babu and others also participated in the programme.